Dissonance-Based Interventions for Substance Using Alternative High School Youth

Abstract

This article describes an innovative new intervention tailored to older youth who are already abusing drugs, but who are not diagnostically ready for treatment. The basic tenet of this intervention is to utilise adolescents engaged in drug use as ‘experts’ in the prevention curriculum adaptation activity. This activity then serves as a mechanism for their dissonance-based change. This process is designed to intervene with drug abusing youth prior to their development of substance dependence. The community-based design grew from a United States federally funded NIDA project (National Institute of Drug Abuse Mentored Research Scientist Award) which found that the youth who conduct programme adaptations were effectively engaged, animatedly discussing the payoffs and downsides of drug and alcohol abuse. It is maintained through this research that dissonance between their role of ‘Preventionist’ and their own substance abuse behaviours lead to shifts in attitudes and behaviours. Dissonance-based interventions have been successfully utilised for positive behavioural change with a variety of disorders, but have not yet been implemented with substance abusing youth. Findings of pilot research are shared along with implications for future research and interventions.

Keywords:

• adolescence
• substance abuse
• prevention
• intervention
• dissonance

Acknowledgements

The research noted in this article was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a division of the United States National Institutes of Health, grant K01 DA017276. The authors would like to thank the Drug Resistance Strategies team who developed the original keepin’ it REAL curriculum, co-researcher Dr. Laura Moon Hopson, doctoral candidate Jeremy Goldbach, and the University of Texas at Austin School of Social Work's Center for Social Work Research, all who have been instrumental in this project.